poor breech plug inletting

[bob hertrich]

I have a problem with my bad in letting on my breech plug. It is a Colerain 20 gauge and I reached out to Colerain to see if I could buy a new breech plug. Never heard back from them. I got one from MLBS and it is to short. Any suggestions to rectify the problem.

[Chowmi]

It's hard to tell from your picture, what problem are you addressing? 

The inletting around the tang may or may not be as bad as you think after you file it down, and then maybe wet it.  Unless there are gaps in the tang inlet worse than the picture shows, you haven't done a terrible job.  I done and seen worse!

From the picture, do I see that the breech of the barrel does not contact the wood at the rear of the barrel channel?  Is that what you mean? 
If so, then you could start working it back wards and your tang would just sit a bit further back.  Does that make sense? 

If you describe what you mean a little more, we might be able to help better.

Also, how much too short is the one from MLBS?  They usually arrive quite thick, in fact most tangs I've seen need quite a bit of thinning.  There is usually enough metal to peen it out longer to an extent if it is not too short.

cheers,
Norm

[Scota4570]

Little gaps??  Steam it.  Lay a damp rag on the area then use a clothing iron to make lots of steam.  Steam swells wood and repairs minor foibels. IF you leave the wood a bit proud of the metal you can steam it until pliable and tap it with a smooth face little hammer and move a little wood into the gaps. 

[bob hertrich]

The Colerain is 2.38 long and the MLBS is 2 21. I am just trying to get rid of the gap on the pointed part of the breech. How would I go about peening it, I'm afraid of misshaping it. The plug is against the wood so there is little movement there.

[Daniel Coats]

I saw a guy peen the wood in around the edges with a hammer before. When he was done you couldn't see any gaps or bruising. Not a recommendation here just saying there's more than one method. Probably depends on how much gap there is etc.

[smallpatch]

Bob, I’m not seeing a gap.  Maybe just the photo.  A little gap at the tang is not bad.  Keeps from damage when it’s removed. Also, staining and finish will help some.

[RichG]

there's a gap

[Dale Halterman]

You could always glue in a small piece of wood and trim back to give a tight fit. I try not to inlet my tangs too tightly because I am afraid that if they take any part of the recoil they may split the stock.

Dale H

[Scota4570]

You want a little gap or the wood with split out from recoil. 

[EC121]

If there isn't a slight gap there, the point might split the wood over time from shrinkage.  Also finish will fill most of that little gap.  If it bothers you , pien the point out bit with a hammer.

[Daniel Coats]

Paint it black!!

[David Rase]

I see two options.  You could use a small cross peen hammer and stretch the metal on the existing tang slightly, touch the edges up with a file and be done with it or you could use the same method and stretch the MBS tang, file and reinlet.
David

[davec2]

All right......this is going to be heresy to some on this board.......On every rifle I build I bed the breach area, including the plug and tang, with stained Acra Glass Gel.  I don't do this to fill in gaps (usually  ) but I do it to reinforce the breach area against recoil and, mostly, to completely waterproof the end grain exposed while inletting the breach.  (I also often do this to the end grain under the butt plate.) I would certainly do all of the steaming / wetting to expand the wood to fill any gaps you are not happy with as much as possible, as recommended by others.  But then I would bed the breach area.  The added benefit, beyond reinforcing and waterproofing, is that the stained bedding with be virtually impossible to see (if the gaps are small enough) once the gun is stained and finished and it will completely fill any little gaps.

[smallpatch]

Let the stoning begin!

[Stophel]

I can barely see anything.  Frankly, your tang inletting looks a lot better than many I see.  Your problem appears to me to be very, very small, and not worthy of a new breech plug, or peening out the tang (If you peen it out, it will be lopsided and not properly shaped anymore.  You may be able to peen out the length of a square ended tang, but trying to peen out a shaped tang like that will just cause more headaches).

A hair's breadth of space around the end of the tang is not a bad thing, for reasons stated by others here.  As long as it's even and SMALL.  The teensy bit of space that may be there in the corners of the pointy end can be filled by fitting slivers of wood and glueing in place.  And I mean fitted. Not stick a hunk of random wood in and goop it in place with... ugh... epoxy.  On a well fitted patch, the glue line will be essentially non existent.  Given the very small space you have to fill, it will be basically invisible anyway.     You can use the tang itself to squeeze and clamp the sliver of wood in place while glueing.

[Curtis]

I would recommend putting in the tang bolt and tightening it down before you do much else, so you can see what changes that may make.  Steaming the wood will fill the gaps, however when the wood dries out over time much of the gap will likely open back up.  If you use a penetrating sealer and/or finish that absorbs deeply into the wood, it will swell a little and stay that way permanently.

Glue in a properly oriented wood shaving, re-inlet if necessary and it will be fixed with a lot less work that filing up a new plug and inletting that.  Just my 2 cents.....

Curtis

[Craig Wilcox]

Three cheers for Chrisali!  Good common sense way of solving several small problems in one go.

[smart dog]

Hi Bob,
I honestly don't see much of a gap.  Have you wet the wood?  Curtis is right.  Don't do anything yet until the tang bolt is installed and pulls the tang down.  If a noticeable gap remains, I would take Dave Rase's advice.  Peen the tip a little to stretch it and file to shape.  I had to do just that to lengthen a tang.  The tang that came with the barrel was only 2" long and I needed almost another 1/8" to cover the badly machine inlet for the tang.  I could have welded on some metal but decided to heat the tang red hot and bash the snot out of it with a ball peen.  At the time I didn't have a cross peen but I do now.  It worked just fine as you can see in the photo below.   


dave

[Not English]

I agree with Dave, except that I use epoxy and dry pigment. There's nothing wrong with doing so.

[jerrywh]

You are getting some good advise here.  But Wetting will do you no good nor will steaming. The wood will return to it's original  form when it dries. Dave Race has a very good solution in my opinion.  Your gaps are very small and even the addition of finish may leave them acceptable. But penning the metal some will make the gaps disappear and it is a permanent solution.  Most  advanced builders often use this technique.  There are no finishing problems to worry about either. Just my opinion but what do I know??

[bob hertrich]

Again always great advice on this forum,. I clamped the barrel in and the plug does not look that bad now. I have one place where I will put a sliver of wood in. Thanks for for all the inputs.

[Long John]

Bob,

Every year for the past 5 or 6 I have been doing a demo at the Gunmakers'Fair showing how to address issues like this.

You can move both the wood and the metal although metal like being moved much more than wood.

Fist you have to draw-file the top surface so you can clearly see where the gaps are.  From you photo I can't see enough.

The best option is to push-over the steel to meet the wood.  Mark the areas that have to move with a Sharpie.  Pull the plug from the barrel, lay it on your anvil and start peining the metal where it is marked.  I sue a ball-pein hammer with a head about the size of my thumb.  Lots of little taps all along the edge that you want to move over.  It doesn't take a lot.  Pein a bit, try fit, pein a bit more, try fit, slowly causing the metal to flow and fill the gap.  This will close a 1/16th inch gap in a few minutes.  Sometimes  if a gap is only on one side, for example, you will have to pein both sides to keep thing symmetric and that will mean you have to widen the inlet in spots.  To do this make a little scraper and use it to scrap away the wood where you need some extra width.  Also keep in mind that if you pein one side of a long part like a tang that you will cause the whole tang to bend slightly away from the side where you are peining.  You might have to corrct some bend.

You can also move the wood.  To do that you must first wet the wood and once well wet apply a hot iron to turn the water to team and, using the hot iron in a manner similar to a punch tap the iron while its steaming the wood to shove the wood over.  Wood does NOT like this kind of treatment and wood treated this way will take stain differently, usually more intensely, which will show up when the gun is finished.  It might be more noticeable in plain wood than in highly figured wood.

So you can fix inletting gaps without resorting to abominations like saw-dust mixed with glue or stained epoxies.  All it takes is a little time.  Go slow and you can achieve great results.

Good Luck!

JMC